Hmmm . . . This was not what we were led to believe would happen, writes Tom Humphriesin Croke Park
Croke Park hummed to the calls of a different species of sports person and though Ireland heaved, consolidated and got it together at second phase, the result came from a more familiar lexicon. They lost.
Or as some of those visiting the northside for the first time had feared, they were mugged. In daylight. The French winger Vincent Clerc all but silenced the stadium when he burgled a last-minute try. His friend, Lionel Beauxis, converted to give France a 20-17 win.
Glum and bewildered were the faces of the rugby fraternity as they were bussed back to the safety of the southside to conduct the postmortems on how a day of history became one of anticlimax.
The French, after all, scored the first points, the first try and the first win in Croke Park. The fingers of no angry gods emerged from the sky to smite the GAA's leaders for permitting a performance of rugby to be held in the cathedral by the canal. No cockerels were released on to the sacred turf and the half-time spectacular was some homely tootling from the Artane Boys Band, who are available on special offer to new customers.
In fact it was all quite muted even for those looking for the chance to feel that they were part of history.
La Marseillaisemade a nice, rousing and suitably revolutionary opening anthem for the new era in Croke Park. It was the old twin dirges of Ireland's Calland The Fields of Athenrywhich set GAA folk to examining their consciences.
The rugby was poor, and even when it started going all jagged like a thriller towards the end, it ended with one twist too few for the home support.
The French, who started well, had looked tired in the second half and Ireland were headed for the comfort zone when Ronan O'Gara, who scored all his side's points, popped a 77th-minute penalty to give the home team a 17-13 lead.
The French, though, had brought their sangfroid with them. From the restart the ball bounced unpredictably. Ireland failed to gather it, Eddie O'Sullivan's team missed as many tackles as Steve Staunton's did in San Marino last week. Et voila! Clerc jinked happily through for France's fifth successive win over Ireland. "By any standards it was a cruel way to lose a game of rugby," O'Sullivan said afterwards.
Most of the 81,572 crowd looked shell-shocked. Rickety old Lansdowne had rarely brought such misfortune. Ireland play England at Croke Park next Saturday week. All talk of a Croke Park curse has been deferred until then.